ATHENS: Greek workers have walked off their jobs for a 24-hour general strike that is shutting services across the country and suspending ferry services to and from the islands.
Unions called Thursday’s strike to protest austerity measures that will continue beyond next year’s end of Greece’s third international bailout package.
State-run hospitals were accepting only emergency cases as medical staff joined the strike, while state schools remained shut.
Public transport was operating only for certain hours during the day, while airlines rescheduled and canceled flights as some airport staff joined the labor action with a four-hour work stoppage.
Greece has been dependent on bailouts since 2010. In return for billions of euros in emergency loans, successive governments have had to impose stringent spending cuts, tax hikes and structural reforms.
Greek workers walk out as they stage 24-hour general strike
Greek workers walk out as they stage 24-hour general strike
Spanish PM Sanchez says US invasion of Greenland ‘would make Putin happiest man on earth’
- Sanchez said any military action by the US against Denmark’s vast Arctic island would damage NATO and legitimize the invasion of Ukraine by Russia
MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said a US invasion of Greenland “would make Putin the happiest man on earth” in a newspaper interview published on Sunday.
Sanchez said any military action by the US against Denmark’s vast Arctic island would damage NATO and legitimize the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
“If we focus on Greenland, I have to say that a US invasion of that territory would make Vladimir Putin the happiest man in the world. Why? Because it would legitimize his attempted invasion of Ukraine,” he said in an interview in La Vanguardia newspaper.
“If the United States were to use force, it would be the death knell for NATO. Putin would be doubly happy.”
President Donald Trump on Saturday appeared to change tack over Greenland by vowing to implement a wave of increasing tariffs on European allies until the United States is allowed to buy Greenland.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said additional 10 percent import tariffs would take effect on February 1 on goods from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and Great Britain — all already subject to tariffs imposed by Trump.
Those tariffs would increase to 25 percent on June 1 and would continue until a deal was reached for the US to purchase Greenland, Trump wrote.
Trump has repeatedly insisted he will settle for nothing less than ownership of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark. Leaders of both Denmark and Greenland have insisted the island is not for sale and does not want to be part of the United States.
